Improve Your Hiring Process With This Tactic

Making Better Hires - Filtering Out Tire Kickers

The method I use to make hiring easier.

Hiring is hard - I've made many bad hires.

But I've found a few simple methods to increase my chances of success.

One that I like to use is a tire-kicker filter.

In the last year, we've advertised for a marketing manager, a gym manager and an administrative assistant.

We received about ~50 applicants for each role.

That's a ton of CVs to read, social media profiles to look at (yes, we all do that) and background checks.

Many of these people have applied for ten other jobs and probably, didn't even read our job description before applying. They're spraying and praying with little care about where they end up.

To get rid of these tire-kickers - I ask all job applicants to fill out a post-application form.

It's a simple 10-question questionnaire - asking for a little more information about the application, kind of like a pre-interview screen.

Such as, what books do you read? Why do you want to be a marketing manager? How do you like to be managed and so on.

I ask for short replies - 2-3 sentences for each question. So all up, they take 5 - 10 minutes to complete. I'm not asking for much, right.

This filter turns 50 applicants into about (a 30% response rate on average) 15. From there, I start reading CVs, cover letters and so on.

Notes: Use a filter to remove tire kickers from your hiring process.

Moats - Your Sustainable Competitive Advantage

How our gym is losing its way and what we need to do to re-establish our competitive moat.

“A truly great business must have an enduring “moat” that protects excellent Returns on Invested Capital” - Warren Buffett

At our gym, we try to gather as much feedback from our members as possible.

We're always trying to learn how to serve our members better.

Generally, when we hear a complaint or suggestion multiple times, I'll encourage our team to address it.

But I've made a mistake. The intention was good, but the outcome won't be.

The more complaints we've addressed, the broader our offerings have become and the more types of people we've attracted, which is creating a broadening feedback loop.

The more we address complaints, the more we invite them. If we fall into this trap long enough, we'll be a gym for everyone that does everything.

Which is not what we or any business should want to become.

"A product for everyone is a product for no-one" - unknown.

We've doubled our membership base in two years, so the books look good. But I suspect if we keep going in this direction - eventually no one will love what we do - we'll become another also-rand snap fitness, leading to our long-term death.

We need to start specialising again.

Instead of running around fixing problems for everyone - which means more equipment, more classes on our timetable and so on. We need to focus on what we're good at - what people love and do more of that.

Narrowing our focus will cause short-term pain but produce a large long-term gain - we'll get back to serving our 1,000 true fans.

Notes: A sustainable competitive advantage helps you win; you need to focus on what you do well and that people love to keep winning.

• ​Culture Fit - An article on unconventional questions you can ask to assess a candidate's cultural fit for your business. The last question is the best - I’ve used this a couple of times and got some interesting answers.

  • Shout-out to Angus Pauley for this gem.

• ​Business Assessment Tool - (**For NZ Business owners only**) a ~100-question survey that might help you spot weak areas in your business.

Bits vs Atoms - A Macro Trend We Can Learn From

A look at how bits are dominating our physical and commercial world and how we can adjust.

All businesses are a combination of bits and atoms.

We’ve seen unequivocally that the companies that deal in bits access advantages to scale that atoms businesses simply can’t.

Think Facebook, Google, Airbnb, Uber and so on.

Whether they’re in the business of delivering digital services or media, compared to their physical equivalents, they’re winning.

Uber vs Taxi Company

Airbnb vs Hotels

etc.

Generally, companies with the highest ratios of bits survive the longest and make the most profits - they scale easier and leverage economies of scale better.

Bits beat atoms.

So can we look at any type of business across industry or business model and predict, on average, which one will win based on their bits to atoms ratio?

A hair salon. A law firm. A salmon farm. A baby-food manufacturer.

Perhaps we as operators should constantly push towards a higher ratio of bits in our businesses.

Notes: Companies built with bits are overwhelmingly beating companies built with atoms.